I see autumn clearing dead yellow leaves
And I hear the voice of a soft new breeze
Sweetly singing its new fresh tunes
Elating all those sad dry blues
These are the days for our love sake
Needed to pull the emergency brake
To save whatever was at stake
Give life a brighter shake.
These are the days where we confront disparity
Find a good balance between different equality
Rejoin together in a heart reborn
Sew together what has been torn.
These are the days where we stop eating each other
Enslaved by the thirst for money and power
Share together and genuinely appraise
Talents lost in a hopeless maze
Give new voice to mournful echoes
Flourish together as flowery meadows
These are our new ways
These are the new days
29-05-2018
It is always after days like this one,
of a kind of proverbial snake chasing
its tail, its form flawless, its strength in
numbers of its friends all rolling together
carrying me to the end of a long day,
the end being where I started, just as
dark, my breath as clear on the concrete
platform as it was twelve hours before,
my insides still a Colombian neck tie.
But I am still one hour and at least two
languages away from there, here in the
bar car, my head against the stretch window
as the Norman countryside smears by at
200 kph, a drop of casis stirring towards a
mandarin horizon fuller than my plastic cup of scotch,
tilting with each banking of the train only to
level out sharply seconds later, the minimum
time required - I suspect - for the stubbly
driver to refresh his senses with a good chuckle,
which would surely be more
frequent if they let me ride up there with him,
playing "I Spy" with our eyes closed,
testing the emergency brake and
scaring cars at crossings with the horn.
Can anyone open windows
to let some fresh air in...
when pollution smears smog
on glass, frame and window-pans?
Hear the loud bark of a frustrated dog
that sees no light but feels pain?
Tremors make the walls shake
as fast trains speed through dark tunnels,
that's when residents like to pull the emergency brake
to stop the noise and stay focus on their thoughts.
What price will they pay: lung cancer, asthma or deafness?
City Hall isn't trying harder or couldn't care less...
as long as profits are made and taxes are collected?
Have some of you put in a complaint and been neglected?
Many were raised here and will die here before the problems are corrected,
will their children suffer as they have and realize that living in this city is pure hell?
For their own sake, not for ours...an immediate response is required;
who wants to live in a city such as this and rely on a system that's so frail?